Owners of a popular takeaway have taken a stand against fast food app Just Eat - claiming they are being crippled by delivery fees.

Hello Pizza, on Kensington, has been open for around three years - with co-owners Diana Nadryan and Vladimer Shakhbazyan taking on the business last summer.

But despite running a busy shop with orders constantly coming in online, the owners claim they’ve been running at a loss thanks to the fees charged by Just Eat.

Diana also claims the takeaway had to lay off four members of staff and two drivers as they struggle to make ends meet.

The costs of working through Just Eat have forced staff at Hello Pizza to take the decision to remove their business from the site entirely - but they’re afraid what this will mean for sales.

Speaking to the ECHO about her business, Diana said: “We are quite busy shop but the problem is Just Eat puts in the contract it’s 14% from order that they charge - but then there’s the admin fee, service charge and then put on VAT, it comes out about 20%. In a take-away situation that’s a staggering amount.”

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Diana explained that customers are charged 50p or £1 as a delivery fee, which she claims the take-away is then charged VAT on.

But a spokesperson for Just Eat disputed this, saying: "When we process orders on a restaurant's behalf, the restaurant is charged a 50p administration fee. Our restaurant partners are able to pass this charge on to customers as a service charge, unless the restaurant opts out of doing so - restaurants are not charged twice."

Diana added: “We had to made four people redundant because of that. We don’t want to lose all the rest of the workers.”

Just Eat said: “Just Eat works with over 28,000 restaurant partners across the UK, many of which are family-run or independently-owned businesses.

Hello Pizza in Kensington is leaving Just Eat after they claim the fees meant they were operating at a loss (Image: Hello Pizza)

“We have a track record of helping our partners grow their business whether it’s through access to consumers online that they may not have been able to reach, or our investment in technology and marketing to help businesses raise their profile and attract more orders.

“Our dedicated Restaurant Services team also brokers deals to give our restaurant partners exclusive access to discounts from utilities to wholesalers, helping them to make significant savings. A number of our restaurant partners are now achieving savings that more than offset the rate of commission.

“We’re adding value to our partners’ businesses on a daily basis, and many grow and flourish through working with Just Eat.”

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Diana admitted she’s fearful of the impact leaving Just Eat will have on her business, due to the popularity of the site and its ability to create orders for a take-away.

She said: “When you are on Just Eat it becomes overwhelming - you are creating bubble instead of business. It doesn’t matter that there is an actual shop on the main road, lovely and renovated with restaurant quality food.

“Because of their really big marketing they’ve got a monopoly on the take-away delivery market. If you are not listed on their ordering system you don’t exist as a business.”

Diana’s business partner claims around 80% of their orders were coming in through Just Eat - so they’ve come up with a new way to run Hello Pizza without the site.

The take-away owners have decided to set up their own website and they’re offering customers 20% off every order, instead of the 20% they claim they were losing to Just Eat.

Diana said: “We decided to go with our own website and wanted to let customers know. We just decided to just give a 20% discount so customers will benefit from it, we are not going to charge delivery or order charge.”